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Debates

In the wake of the Sandy Hook killings, there's been a flurry of activity on the activist front, from all over the spectrum. I've engaged in gun rights debates in assorted venues prior, and many of my friends and acquaintances were quick to want to revisit the debate as soon as an hour after reports began filtering in. At the same time, it scarcely took days before the various media talking heads and politicians began clamoring for more gun control, allowing teachers to carry firearms, or looked at those events as an excuse to promote their desire for a theocratic state. (In fairness, that last bit may have a touch of hyperbole to it.) I have largely held off commenting because, frankly, no one would be willing to have a serious discussion about it that wasn't infused with raw emotions and passions. Even now, as the debate continues at a rolling boil some weeks after the event, we have the wingnut brigade screaming "CONSPIRACY!!!" every chance they get.
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One day Joe is driving in his car. He heads onto the onramp for the highway and starts accelerating. As he does this, he muses on the perfect curve of the onramp, that all he has to do is lock the wheel in place and the car goes correctly.

He muses on what would happen were he not to pull out of this curve. The car would describe a
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Believers of various stripes often herald their chosen tome of knowledge (or set of intellectual precepts) as the source for morality, or, alternatively, a binding agreement of some sort that dictates punishments for assorted trespasses. Often, those believers will argue that absent such a set of principles, people would run around fucking dead koala-babies or some such (or at least, imply the same).
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